One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Ken Kesey

Part III

Part IV, page 2

page 1 of 3

Summary

Nurse Ratched posts the patients’ financial statements
on the bulletin board to show that everyone’s account, except McMurphy’s, shows
a steady decline in funds. The other patients begin to question the
motivations for his actions. When a phone call keeps McMurphy away
from a Group Meeting, Ratched insinuates that everything he does
is motivated by the desire for personal gain. Later, Harding argues
that they have all gotten their money’s worth and that McMurphy
never hid his con-man ways from them.

McMurphy asks Bromden if he can move the control panel,
as a way of testing how big Bromden has grown. Bromden is able to move
it half a foot. McMurphy makes a rigged bet with the other patients
that someone could lift the control panel, knowing, of course, that
Bromden has already lifted it. Bromden lifts it, and McMurphy wins
the bet. Bromden, uncomfortable with McMurphy’s deceit, refuses
to accept the five dollars that McMurphy offers him later. McMurphy
asks why all of a sudden everyone acts like he is a traitor, and
Bromden tells him it is because he is always winning things.

Ratched orders that everyone who went on the fishing
trip be cleansed because of the company they kept. George has a
phobia regarding cleanliness and begs the aides not to spray him
with their smelly salve. McMurphy and Bromden get into a fistfight
with the aides to defend George, so Ratched sends them to Disturbed.
The kind Japanese nurse who tends them explains that army nurses
have a habit of trying to run the place as if it were an army hospital
and are “a little sick themselves.” One of the patients wakes Bromden during
the night by yelling in his face, “I’m starting to spin, Indian! Look
me, look me!” Bromden wonders how McMurphy can sleep, plagued as
he must be by “a hundred faces like that,” desperate for his attention.

Nurse Ratched tells McMurphy that he can avoid electroshock therapy
by admitting he was wrong. He refuses, telling her “those Chinese
Commies could have learned a few things from you, lady.” He and
Bromden are sent for the treatment, but McMurphy does not seem afraid
at all. He voluntarily climbs onto the cross-shaped table and wonders
aloud if he will get a “crown of thorns.” Bromden, however, is afraid
and struggles mightily. During the treatment and afterward, Bromden
experiences a rush of images and memories from his childhood. When
he regains consciousness, he resists the fog and works to clear
his head, the first time he has managed to do so after receiving
shock therapy. He knows that this time he “had them beat,” and he
is not subjected to any more treatments. McMurphy, however, receives
three more treatments that week. He maintains an unconcerned attitude
about it, but Bromden can tell that the treatments are affecting
him. Ratched realizes that McMurphy is growing bigger in the eyes
of the other men because he is out of sight, so she decides to bring
him back from Disturbed.

The other patients know that Ratched will continue to
harass McMurphy, so they urge him to escape. McMurphy reminds them that
Billy’s date with Candy is later that night. That night, McMurphy
persuades Turkle to open the window for Candy. She arrives with
Sandy in tow, carrying copious amounts of alcohol. Everyone mixes
vodka with cough syrup, while Turkle and McMurphy smoke joints.
Sefelt has a seizure while with Sandy, and Harding sprinkles pills
over them both, declaring that they are “witnessing the end, the absolute,
irrevocable, fantastic end.” Sometime after four in the morning,
Billy and Candy retreat to the Seclusion Room.

As it gets closer to morning, they realize that they
are going to have to figure something out before the staff arrives.
Harding tells McMurphy that they can tie up Turkle, so it looks
like the mess created by their party was all part of McMurphy’s
escape attempt. Turkle can keep his job, the other patients will
not get into trouble, and McMurphy can drive off to Canada or Mexico
with Candy and Sandy. McMurphy asks whether any of the rest of them
would want to escape with him. Harding replies by saying that he
is almost ready to leave on his own, with all “the traditional red
tape.” He says that the rest of them are “still sick men in lots
of ways. But at least there’s that: they are sick men now.
No more rabbits, Mack.”

To weaken the structure of such an (intricate) attack on a borderline genius and his family 1st you must be more committed than more than 5 minds at play. You must do whatever it takes to luir you (snails) out of hiding you cowards are what entertains me. Now that you and I both know undeniably the web I woven has drawn you all into a trap, as the structure colapses on all of you. If you can heed warnings and believe mis information note that this is a game of chess, so to speak. And you hiding in the night served as a darker place for me t